Forest Hills History: A “Lost Hilltop Home”

Why is there a curb cut and a gate to nowhere on Connecticut Avenue between Tilden and Van Ness Streets? It’s an entrance gate to what was once “one of the country’s most sophisticated scientific laboratory complexes,” the National Bureau of Standards.

You’ve read about the neighborhood’s former Ice Palace on the Streets of Washington history blog. The latest article, by friend of Forest Hills Connection John DeFerrari, is about more lost Forest Hills history.

As you read the article, imagine what might have been if the sprawling campus still stood. As DeFerrari writes, “The Secretary of Commerce… determined that not a single one of the 90 structures on the 70-acre campus had any historic significance at all, an outrageous assertion that would be inconceivable today.”